Electronic Arts has released a small patch for the Dutch edition of American McGee's Alice for download from their ftp server (50 KB). The patch adds Dutch subtitles to the game, and also sets the subtitle option to ON as default (on a clean install of the game only). Sure, it's a small thing, but you don't expect me to ignore it, right?

TalonSoft has opened the official Star Leader and G.I. Combat sites for business, showcasing their just-announced strategy titles (story). Both sites feature brief descriptions of the respective game premises, concept art and wallpapers, the first screenshots, and a movie trailer in self-running Bink format each offerring a bit over half a minute of pre-rendered and gameplay footage.

A brief interview with Gavin Rummery is up at Daily Radar this evening, talking with the lead programmer at Core Design about Project Eden, their upcoming Playstation 2 and PC third person action game. The interview is in Daily Radar's PS2 section, however only one of them deals with the PS2 specifically, and even that one asks about the differences between the two versions of the game.

Daily Radar has conducted an interview with Cal Morrell, the president of the Interplay.com, the new (and aptly named) multiplayer arm of Interplay (story). Cal dodges questions about specific games they will be offering, but he does say that in a recent poll Fallout came out on top as the most-requested massively multiplayer title (beating out The Sims) and he also mentions that their Dungeons & Dragons license along with Descent and Giants are also being considered.

PC.IGN.com Previews Outlive is a new look ahead to the isometric RTS nearing completion at Brazilian developers Continuum. The article details the storyline, examines the gameplay and describes some of the game's features, and comes with a baker's dozen new screenshots.

There is a brief interview on Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven at Daily Radar this evening, talking to lead designer Daniel Vavra at Illusion Softworks about their upcoming third-person action game. Daniel provides an update on how the game is progressing and talks about various features of the game, like the storyline, their graphics engine, the voice-overs and more.

• Zero-G Marines
  PC.IGN.com has posted four new screenshots of Zero-G Marines, showing off the space-based first-person shooter currently in the works at Strategy First.
• Project Eden
  Like numerous other sites today, PC.IGN has also posted a mix of new and familar Project Eden screenshots from Core Design's copiously illustrated 3D action game.
• Seraphim
  Completing PC.IGN's screenshots hat trick this evening are five new images of Seraphim, the 3D action game of angelic combat being prototyped at Valkyrie Studios.
• Merchant Prince II
  GameSpot has posted the first three screenshots of Merchant Prince II, the just-announced turn-based strategy game by Holistic Design and TalonSoft (story).
• Europa Universalis
  A new Europa Universalis gallery is up at Digital Extremists, sporting fifteen new screenshots of the strategy game in the works at Paradox Entertainment.
• Luna
  Like this afternoon, half a dozen new Luna screenshots are online at both GameSpot and GameZNet, showing off Anarchy Enterprises' 3D sim/strategy game.
• Caeron3000
  RPGPlanet has posted seven new screenshots of Caeron3000, illustrating the futuristic MMORPG in development at Magique Productions.

On the occasion of Blizzard's ten year anniversary, PC.IGN.com has posted an interview with the three founders Allen Adham, Michael Morhaime and Frank Pearce, who remenisce about the start of the company, memorable events during its history, the trials and tribulations of their various game projects, and the proverbial more.

Gamer's Pulse has conducted a quick Starfleet Command 2 Post Release Interview quizzing Taldren's Josh Morris on their recently released space strategy game (thanks VoodooExtreme). Josh looks back at developing a game in the Star Trek franchise, speculates on what a future installment in the series would look like, and also mentions that their Dynaverse II multiplayer universe should be rolled out this month.

Only days after the previous release comes a new version 3.7 of the Eternal Arena mod for Quake III Arena. This release brings a new Pain Factor gamemode, a new spectator cam, various gameplay changes and several bug fixes.

Gone Gold, who breathes this kind of news, reports that Clive Barker's Undying has gone gold, as confirmed with publisher Electronic Arts. Undying is the horror first-person shooter developed by DreamWorks Interactive, and the game is expected on store shelves around February 20.

GameSpot is the latest site to preview Star Trek: Away Team, looking ahead to the isometric squad-based tactical combat game by Reflexive and Activision. There's a little background on the developer, an overview of the game's premise and features, hands-on impressions and more, all highlighted by quotes from producer Eric Dallaire and a some two dozen new screenshots.

Wayward Design has released a version 1.0 patch for B-17 Flying Fortress: the Mighty Eighth to fansite Bombs-Away.Net, which you can get from their download section. The patch clocks in at 15.7 MB and the server seems very slow, so be prepared for a long haul. It's described as "a stability patch fixing the ctd's and missing crew members." Thanks Bud Yates for the tip. Update: 3D Gamers now has a mirror of the patch.

As promised early this week (story), Planet Moon has released a playable demo of Giants: Citizen Kabuto for download from GameSpot. The demo weighs in at a hefty 103.3 MB and features the second story in the Meccaryns episode entitled Hunger in the Codpiece Hills, spanning several levels. Update: mirrors are available at 3D Gamers and FilePlanet.

• Project Eden
  More Project Eden today, as Games Domain has also posted a new screenshots gallery showing off Core Design's upcoming first- and third-person action game, and there are a couple new and familiar images on GameSpyDaily as well. Update: AVault also joins the fray with their own mix of new and not-new-anymore screenshots.
• NOLF Bonus Maps
  Stomped has posted three new screenshots of the next bonus map pack for No One Lives Forever, Monolith's acclaimed first-person shooter.
• Fallout Tactics
  There are a few new (and two familiar) Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel screenshots on Vault13.net, offering more scenes from Micro Forte's squad-based tactical combat game, and similarly GameSpyDaily has also posted a few new images among familiar ones.
• Operation Flashpoint
  The official Operation Flashpoint site sports a new pair of wallpapers illustrating the 3D tactical action game in development at Bohemia Interactive.
• Fighting Legends
  WomenGamers has posted seven new Fighting Legends screenshots, illustrating this colorful online-only role-playing strategy game by Maximum Charisma.
• IL-2 Sturmovik
  The official IL-2 Sturmovik screenshots gallery has been updated with more aerial scenes from the WWII flight sim by 1C Maddox Games and Blue Byte.
• Luna
  Both 3DShots and GameSpyDaily have each posted half a dozen Luna: Moon Colony Simulator screenshots, showing off this 3D sim/strategy game by Anarchy Enterprises.

GA-Source reports that TalonSoft has announced three new strategy games today: Star Leader, real-time 3D strategy/role-playing game; G.I. Combat, a real-time strategy game; and Merchant Prince II, a turn-based strategy game, and the report has the first sketchy info on all three games.

Following up on this morning's announcement of Nexagon: The Pit (story), Adrenaline Vault has conducted a quick interview with lead programmer Guy English at Strategy First about this 3D tactical action game. Since the announcement didn't contain much information, Guy provides the first real details about the gameplay, which seems primarily focused on multiplayer, as well as the role-playing elements, the units, their in-house engine, and more.

Valve has released a new beta version of the Half-Life dedicated server, that addresses the "clock speed cheat" that has been plaguing Half-Life and Counter-Strike players. It was originally sent out to members of the Half-Life server admin mailing list, however the files (in Win32 and Linux flavors) can now be downloaded at The Shugashack.

Blizzard Entertainment issued a press release this evening announcing that they have finalized the four playable races in Warcraft III. That's right, they've finalized four playable races, not the five that were originally planned. According to the press release, the Orcs, Humans, Undead and Night Elves will all be playable, but the Demons, which were previously said to be playable will now be "a non-playing race that interacts with the four playable races and advances the game's storyline." More details on these races and the game itself can be found in the official press release. The game is still scheduled for a 2001 Windows 9x/Me/2000 release, and early 2002 on the Mac OS.

The Shugashack received a mail from Rogue Entertainment's Barrett Alexander who let them know that Electronic Arts has pulled the plug on their unannounced game, which would have been their first solo project since the Quake II mission pack Ground Zero (since then they have contributed to the N64 port of Quake II as well as American McGee's Alice). The Shugashack offers some speculation as to what happened as Barrett's letter is brief, but the letter also says "we have other options available at this time" suggesting there might be more news on the way.

Version 2.2 of Kali II, the venerable server browser/chat client has been released. This new version adds support for Rune, MechWarrior 4, Counter-Strike (retail), SWAT 3, the Quake III: Team Arena demo, No One Lives Forever, and tons of other games, as well as many bug fixes and improvements. Here are direct FTP links to the full download (3.3 MB) and the patch for 2.1b users (441k).

Blue Byte has opened up registration for their upcoming Battle Isle: DarkSpace beta test. The beta starts on February 26th, and will be multiplayer-only. The sign-ups page says that they are already selecting candidates, so if you want to participate head over and apply now.

• Serious Sam
  GameSpot UK has snapped a handful of new Serious Sam screenshots from a playable build of Croteam's fast-paced first-person shooter.
• Project Eden
  There are eleven new screenshots of Project Eden on Computer and Video Games, depicting new areas in the squad-based 3D action game under construction at Core Design.
• Red Faction PS2
  PS2Faction has added a handful of new PS2 screenshots of Red Faction to their ongoing gallery dedicated to Volition's first-person shooter of destructible enemies and environments (not necessarily in that order).
• Parsec
  The official Parsec site features a new screenshot of the month that accompanies a work-in-progress update on this freeware space combat sim that strives for commercial quality.
• Rogue Wars
  GA-Strategy has posted eleven new Rogue Wars screenshots, offering more scenes from this 3D action and turn-based strategy title in the works at ReAllis.
• Echelon
  There are nine new Echelon screenshots on German site Krawall, and you may like to read the accompanying brief impressions of Buka's futuristic combat flyer through the services of Babel Fish.
• Robin Hood
  Cinemaware has released new concept art of Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown to illustrate their upcoming 3D action/strategy reworking of the popular medieval legend (thanks GA-Source for the reminder). And in related news, the original Defender of the Crown will soon be released as a browser game (thanks Medic for the tip).
• Sudden Strike Expansion
  Also nearly slipped through the cracks, CDV has recently released four screenshots of Sudden Strike Forever, an add-on to their isometric RTS that itself was just released in the US.

The LA Times has conducted a Q&A with American McGee, talking about his recently released title American McGee's Alice (thanks GameSpyDaily). It's a short Q&A, but he comments on how the project got off the ground, his aversion to Walt Disney's 1951 animated Alice feature, and what influenced the game's design.

ION Storm sends along a reminder that this evening the usual montly AnachroChat will take place on IRC server "www.ionstorm.com" channel "#ion" again (or via the Chat lobby on their website), so if you want to hang out with Tom Hall and the crew chatting about their upcoming 3D action RPG, be there at 9:00 PM EST (8:00 PM CST).

The second half of GameSpot UK's MechWarrior 4 interview is up this afternoon. This portion focuses on the future of the MechWarrior series, and producer TJ Wagner fields questions about next-generation consoles (confirming that there are no plans to port MW4 to the Xbox) and the future of gaming in general.

AVault has posted an announcement from Strategy First that unveils Nexagon: The Pit, an upcoming 3D tactical action game. It's scheduled for release this Fall, and the announcement has some gameplay details along with the first four screenshots.

Although the game is still without a publisher, yet another Seraphim interview is online today. Stomped talks with Brian Babendererde of Valkyrie Studios about their Unreal-engine game of angelic combat, touching on the plot, the RPG elements it incorporates, the planned multiplayer modes and more, and there are also four new high-resolution screenshots.

Daily Telefragged's Red Faction Interview talks with James Tsai, the associate producer of Volition's upcoming FPS. The questions deal with the role NPCs will play, what hardware features the game will exploit, how its use of the GeoMod engine affects gameplay and more. There are also eight new shots up in their screenshots gallery, in 1600x1200 resolution.

Cheese and Whine interviews Warren Spector checking in with the ION Storm game designer on various topics, including Deus Ex, and future projects, though not much detail is there on the latter, since "it's just too early to be talking about Thief 3 (or Deus Ex 2) just yet." The conversation generally covers broader types of questions concerning current and future directions in game development. The following except offers a question about a favorite literature genre that remains fairly unexploited, with an answer that reflects a point I once heard made about the big Hollywood movie studios, that they do not know how to make money on a film that is not a "blockbuster":

If by any chance you remember my small e-mail a while back, I engaged you on a crime genre game. Creating sort of an interactive 'Out of the Past' or 'The Big Sleep' where you play a detective in a relatively small environment of an extraordinarily high level of detail. As you collect facts and clues, you'd engage other characters on different subjects. How far off would you say such a game is possible to produce?

I'm not sure, really. I'm tempted to say we're pretty close to being able to make the game you describe -- or the One Block Roleplaying Game I've been talking about for a while -- but we're pretty far from having a business model that supports it. Tell a publisher you want to make a small, deep game, the equivalent of a short film or a printed short story, and they'll give you a look like a dog being shown a magic trick. It's a blockbuster business, and you better be able to show the biz guys the money. If we had an alternate distribution system or an indie scene you might see more short form and/or experimental games. Right now, you're not going to find a publisher willing to step up to the plate for a game with ten hours of gameplay and a radically different gameplay style that costs as much to make as a more obviously commercial, long-form game...

• Red Faction
  The official Red Faction site has had a revamp, and now offers some new character images, some screenshots, and a gameplay movie in their downloads section.
• Rogue Wars
  A pair of Rogue Wars screenshots are up on Gameport showing off two landscapes from this upcoming mixed genre shooter (mixing action and turn-based strategy) from ReAllis company.
• Summoner
  A series of Summoner Elements Of The Week on RPG Vault is underway, the first unit so honored is the Wraith, which is shown off in both screenshots and three AVI-format movies.
• Age of Sail 2
  There are a bunch of new Age of Sail 2 screenshots on DigitalExtremists showing off the upcoming follow-up to the RTS game of wooden ships and iron men.

Hypothermia interviews Jon Galloway talking with the Ritual Galloway brother (they already interviewed Gathering of Developers' Josh story). The conversation covers life in the gaming business (including how having a brother in the biz impacts this), his work on their Blair Witch project game, future plans for Ritual and Mumbo Jumbo Games, and more.

• Voodoo Tweakage
  3D Spotlight's 3dfx Voodoo 4-5 Tweak guide has been updated.
• Prices
  Sharky Extreme's Weekly CPU Prices have been updated.
• AMD Documentation
  The x86-64_overview.pdf on AMD.Com is a new Adobe Acrobat document on their x86-64 implementation. Thanks AMDZone.

The Art of Magic developer's diary has been updated with a new part 8 of their series covering progress on the upcoming sequel to Magic & Mayhem. The new installment describes fairly mundane "nuts and bolts" stuff, explaining "it can’t all be devastating death rays from the heavens!"

The Lurker Lounge's Diablo II Expansion Pack January Report is online, offering impressions on progress on the upcoming D2 follow-up from the winner of a recent contest that awarded the chance to visit Blizzard North to check it out. Though a camera to record the event was left behind, the visit did produce some new screenshots, which show off some of the new items to be found in the expansion. Thanks RPGvault.

The RANDMAP for Half-Life page has a new version 4.10 of the RANDMAP utility that can actually generate random maps for Half-Life. Along with a large list of coding updates, the new release also offers underwater pipes for water rooms, the addition of transition prefabs; room prefabs; and end-game rooms, teleporting monster groups now teleport at the same time, "most monsters now point intelligently towards doorways," SvenCoop v1.9 support, and more.

A new version 1.03 of the RTASC for Delta Force: Land Warrior was released a couple of days ago on veni vidi vici. The new version of the Remote Tool Active Server Client offers 'little help text on all pages,' HTML improvements, and major bug fixes.

Saying there are "no plans to continue the development of Servarena in the near future," the Servarena website now offers the release of the source code for this Visual Basic front-end for Quake III Arena. Word is the program hasn't worked properly since the release of version 1.27g of Q3A, which would probably be the first order of business for anyone taking up this project.

John Carmack gets famous reports Computer Games Online in a story describing plans by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences to induct the id Software lead programmer into their Hall-of-Fame, an honor already bestowed upon Squaresoft's Hironobu Sakaguchi, Firaxis' Sid Meier, and Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. The induction will be part of the academy's Annual Interactive Achievement Awards on March 22.

EA Backing Gamecube reports FGN, while GameSpot's Q&A with Valkyrie Studio talks with Brian Babendererde, vice president of game development at Valkyrie Studios about console development of Seraphim. Meanwhile, the Sega situation obviously continues to dominate this topic: Peter Moore discusses Sega's announcement is GameSpot's recap of Sega's conference call with the press over their cessation of the Dreamcast system, Sega of Japan's Comments on Dreamcast Discontinuance are up on Dreamcast.IGN.Com, Sega Negotiating With Sony On Network Content reports GameLoft analyzing the possibility that Sega's online games will be available on the PS2. Finally, Hideo Kojima defines Metal Gear Solid X is a Gaming Intelligence Agency follow-up clarifying the distinction between MGS and MGX.

• Team Arena
  A new question #20 has been added to the Quake III Team Arena FAQ covering the use of terrain maps.
• Counter-Strike
  HL Limit's Counter-Strike weapons guide is now complete.
• Oni
  Gathering of Developers' ONI Level one walkthrough is online showing the way through the Syndicate Warehouse.
• Tomb Raider
  GameSpot UK's Tomb Raider Chronicles Game Guide is up offering tips on getting through the first two chapters of Lara's latest adventures, with a guide to the other two chapters promised to follow soon.
• MechWarrior 4
  PC.IGN.Com's MechWarrior 4 Guide is online for the price of a free registration.
• Empire Earth
  A new Sierra Studios Empire Earth FAQ is now online.

The Season one CCTF Cup results are up on Savage UK with TAWM the winner "in an exciting final against nAo..."

• America on Games Domain.
• Battle of Britain (second opinion) on Games Domain.
• Carnivores 2 on Gracelessland.
• Carnivores: the Ice Age on XGR.
• Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy on ActionTrip.
• Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business on GameZone.
• No One Lives Forever on 3D GameForce.
• Oni on Gamer's Pulse.
• Oni Demo on All Oni.
• Project I.G.I. on GamePower.
• Quake III: Team Arena on Game Revolution.
• Starfleet Command II: Empires at War on Gamesmania.
• The Outforce on Science Fiction Weekly (thanks ATFW).
• Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year on The Duke of URL.
• X-Plane on Computer Games Online and GA-Sim.

• Abit Siluro GeForce2 MX video card on Maximum3D.
• ASUS A7M266 motherboard on I am not a geek.
• ASUS V7100 Deluxe Combo video card on Digit-Life.
• Compaq Presario 1.5 GHz 7100 on Reviewboard.
• Creative Digital IR 52X CD-ROM on t-break.
• Epox 8KTA3 Athlon motherboard on Gamers Depot.
• Gigabyte GA-7DX motherboard on Active Hardware.
• Globalwin FOP 32-1 on PC Review.
• VIA KT133A chipset on SocketA.com

• A report on Doomworld has the minor revelation that id Software has registered UA-Corp.com in what is obviously a tie-in to the upcoming Doom game. Doom fans (and, of course, Old Man Murray) will recall this as the fictional company responsible for all those darn crates, as well as the teleporter disaster, in the original Doom games...
• Daily Radar's USC Game Conference Pt. 1 offers further coverage of the latest Sims news, as well as a report on USC's announcement of an MFA program in game design...
• Word from Sierra Studios is that NASCAR 4 is gold, and set to race into stores soon...
• The Microsoft Links 2001 page has a course converter for download...

Well, the Verizon guy showed up bright and early yesterday, and after a scant few hours of his efforts, I now have a box outside my house connected to the overhead phone lines that I am told now contains all the bandwidth I desire (so close and yet so far). My conversation with the techie (I'm sure they love chatty customers) was revealing, among the tidbits I was able to shake loose was an explanation of why other providers offer aDSL service in my area, but Verizon does not. This is apparently due to an agreement by the formerly local-only telco to allow others to offer aDSL service exclusively to a group of about one million customers (which covers us) in exchange for their right to offer long distance service.

So basically, the reason I could not get the spiffy aDSL service I wanted (in the long run I was unable to nail down aDSL service at all, and ended up ordering the more expensive sDSL) from the provider of my choice, was because of legislation designed to provide me with more choices.

Link of the Day: The Flat Earth Society. Thanks Endgame. "The Society asserts that the Earth is flat and has five sides, that all places in the Universe named Springfield are merely links in higher-dimensional space to one place..."
Story of the Day: Minnesota Prisoners Lose Nudie Magazines (Fox). Thanks John Riordan.
Bonus Story: 110-Year-Old Farmer to Wed. Thanks Joe Siegler. She's half his age, so if he can't be accused of 'cradle robbing' perhaps she should be accused of 'grave robbing'?